One would assume that the Old Media would have a phalanx of intrepid mushing, journos swarming about Wasilla, Alaska, Sarah Palin's hometown. One would think that every single person that lives within 100 miles of Wasilla would have been contacted by at least one journalist by now. That the media's due diligence would have been dilagenced to death at this point. I mean, it's been two weeks! Well, according to Greta Van Susteren, the media is curiously absent in Wasilla.

Greta posted a quickie blog entry on September 12 wondering where the heck everyone was?

Appearing on Wednesday’s America’s Election HQ on FNC, the senior editor of US Weekly, Bradley Jacobs, defended the magazines recent cover, which showed a picture of Sarah Palin and the headline ‘Babies, Lies and Scandal,’ by explaining that: "Actually, the lies that we point out are some of the liberal bloggers who were speculating that the daughter was actually -- had given birth, that there was a coverup there. We're one of the few magazines that actually did call to task those liberal bloggers for the news stories over the weekend."

A skeptical Megyn Kelly responded to that claim by asking: "Bradley, do you think the cover in any way suggests to the viewer who's looking at your magazine while standing there in the grocery store that the lies are lies about Sarah Palin, by her attackers?" Jacobs replied: "I don't think we can talk about all that here. It is -- we've gotten a lot of press today, but a lot of people haven't read this story. You may disagree but it is a fairly...It's a very balanced story. We interview strategists on both sides."

ST. PAUL, Minn.-- Defending his colleagues in the media with their "hard vet" of Gov. Sarah Palin, Fox News Channel's Mort Kondracke told NewsBusters that Republicans should have expected the intense media scrutiny of Palin, a selection he said was "Dan Quayle all over again."

NEWSBUSTERS: Do you feel that the media are vetting Sarah Palin to an extent that they didn't vet Obama in his 19 months of running for office?

MRC Director of Research and NewsBusters Senior Editor Rich Noyes appeared on the July 17 "Election HQ" program on Fox News Channel. Noyes appeared opposite liberal columnist Ellis Henican to discuss whether there was a double standard by the media in covering Sens. McCain and Obama and their foreign trips. [Audio available here.]

The Big Three network news anchors are planning on traveling to Iraq with Sen. Obama, whereas McCain's Iraq trip in March was all but ignored. For example, Noyes noted, Katie Couric gave John McCain's Iraq trip a grand total of 10 seconds of coverage on the "Evening News," and yet she and her competitors are all hopping the press plane for Obama's visit as though they were groupies following a rock star.

For background, read Kyle Drennen's July 17 blog post here. An excerpt of that blog follows:

While Thursday's New York Times reported that the anchors from all three network newscasts will be joining Barack Obama on his trip to Iraq, they showed no such interest in following John McCain during his visit to Iraq in March. During the week of March 16, McCain's trip received only four full-length stories during the combined ABC, CBS, and NBC evening news program coverage. Three of those stories were on NBC's "Nightly News," one of which focused on McCain's mistaken comment about Iran funding Al Qaeda in Iraq. ABC's "World News" did only one full-length story on McCain's Iraq trip, which mentioned the gaffe. The CBS "Evening News" was by far the worst, devoting only 31 words, a grand total of 10 seconds, to the Republican nominee's Iraq visit during the entire week of evening news coverage. Read Media Research Center press release here.

MRC's Director of Media Analysis Tim Graham appeared on the July 1 edition of Fox News Channel's "Just In" to discuss a Chicago Tribune article entitled "Coded Prejudice Is Cloaked Dagger," marking the second media appearance in two days dealing with Chicago Tribune nonsense.

Graham appeared opposite Paul Porter of IndustryEars.com, who alleged the media have an anti-Obama bias.

"The question isn't whether he's getting a fair shake, the question is, 'Is the hug too tight?'" quipped Graham about the media's pro-Obama bias. [audio available here]

The dog ate my transcript.  

That's roughly what Susan Rice's response to a pointed question from Laura Ingraham amounted to. Give credit to Rice, Obama senior foreign policy advisor, for appearing on Ingraham's "Just In" FNC show today and taking on the host in a freewheeling conversation.   But she and her candidate are really going to have to learn to do better than the feeble dodge she offered.

The subject was the recent phone conversation between Obama and Iraqi Foreign Minister, Hoshyar Zebari.  ABC's Jake Tapper reports that after the call, Obama claimed that Zebari "did not express" any concern about the Dem candidate's plan to withdraw U.S. troops.  But Zebari told the Washington Post "that he had some frank talk for the candidate: 'The foreign minister said ‘my message’ to Mr. Obama ‘was very clear...Really, we are making progress. I hope any actions you will take will not endanger this progress.’"

That led to this exchange between Ingraham and Rice.

View video here.

Now that Jim Johnson has quit Barack Obama's vice-presidential candidate selection team, maybe somebody, anybody, in the media, instead of making "He's havng a bad day" excuses, might focus on the questionable judgment of Barack Obama in having Eric Holder serve on that team.

Besides his already-known role in facilitating the Clinton pardons, including that of fugitive billionaire financier March Rich, there's the matter of former Clinton Administration Deputy Attorney General Holder's involvement in the Elian Gonzalez case in 2000.

As the April 23, 2000 edition of the Media Research Center's CyberAlert noted at the time, Andrew Napolitano of Fox News charged that the early-Saturday seizure of the then 6 year-old Gonzalez flagrantly disobeyed a ruling of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.

In response to a question from Fox News anchor Jeff Asman, Napolitano said the following (bolds are mine throughout this post):

In an e-mail conversation today with Greg Gutfeld, the Fox News Channel "Red Eye" host pointed out to me that he joked about cannibalism as a solution to environmental woes, and this, mind you, months before Ted Turner came out clucking about how global warming will make us all cannibals.

Some might say Gut is a voice crying in the late night wilderness, but maybe he actually is a prophet. From his July 20, 2007 item at HuffPo (emphasis mine):

Many of our most thoughtful environmentalists are telling us that our planet is facing an unfathomable calamity. The combination of unbridled overpopulation and increasing greenhouses gases puts us on a path to destroy Mother Earth...unless we do something now. [...]

I have examined this problem closely and realize there is a simple answer to this dilemma. If overpopulation and consumption of animals cause major harm to our planet, then we can simply eradicate both threats through cannibalism.

Let's eat each other.

[...]

Fox News Channel's late-night host Greg Gutfeld has a blog entry up at Huffington Post (also cross-posted to his DailyGut.com Web site) that mocks the insane moonbattery of leftist blog commenters who can't possibly accept that today's attempted bombings in London were part of a terrorist plot.

Gutfeld has a wicked sense of humor, so I snipped a little excerpt below. You can catch "Red Eye w/Greg Gutfeld" at 2:00 a.m. EDT on the Fox News Channel:

Folks, I just spent three hours surfing the net and did I learn a lot! Did you know that most of the news we get is controlled by the Bu$hies? Let me enlighten you about today's so-called terrorist bombing attempt in London:

On Sunday night’s “1/2 Hour News Hour,” comedian Dennis Miller gave Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) the on-air tongue-lashing that every conservative in America has longed for since Reid replaced Tom Daschle as the Democrats’ top guy in that chamber of Congress.

In a two and a half-minute evisceration, Miller referred to Reid as a “dim bulb” stating that he’s had it with the Senator’s “projectile naysaying” while deliciously presenting his views “with no due respect.”

For your entertainment pleasure, here are some of the highlights (video available here, h/t Hot Air):

Update (April 13 | 10:46 EDT): The April 13 edition of Fox News Channel's "Red Eye" briefly addressed Moran's blog entry. I've added a screen capture from the program.

Leave it to a liberal journalist to bring racial tension and class warfare into a story about three men exonerated of rape allegations after a year of prosecutorial misconduct.

ABC's Terry Moran found the outpouring of sympathy for the exonerated Duke lacrosse players is a bit much because, in a nutshell, they're white guys from wealthy families who attended a private university. In fact, in an April 12 "Pushback" blog post at ABCNews.com, he suggested that in a way, they were victimized less than the Rutgers women's basketball team by Imus. Portions in bold are my emphasis. Video Clip: Real (2.7 MB) or Windows (3 MB), Plus MP3 (477 KB)

Washington Post arts reporter Jacqueline Trescott reports on the front page of the Style section today that the Smithsonian Institution (with its fresh new contract with the Showtime cable network) is shutting Oliver North's Fox News Channel cameras out:

The Smithsonian Institution rejected a request from Oliver North to film a stand-up in front of the Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the first atomic bomb. This is the latest flap in the Smithsonian's development of programming for a cable television network.

North, who hosts a Fox News Channel series called "War Stories," returned fire, condemning the Smithsonian's decision. He said in an opinion column that the museum's action raises questions about the propriety of the contract between Showtime Networks and the Smithsonian, which limits access of film crews.

Trescott's story is a reasonable recounting of the battle -- first revealed in North's column in Sunday's Washington Times. (Be sure that the Post hates following in the wake of the conservative Times.) But she omits a crucial fact: the Smithsonian institution is private, but receives most of its funding from the federal government.

It's not just Chris Matthews who sees racial bogeymen behind the RNC's now-famous ad [view here] with a Playboy bunny inviting Harold Ford, Jr. to "call me."

On last evening's "Beltway Boys," normally-kindly moderate Mort Kondracke claimed the Republicans designed the ad to "stir up rednecks."

Mort's fellow "Boy," Fred Barnes, was having none of it:

"You have to be living in the 50's or 60's to think it is racist. . . There is absolutely nothing wrong. It amounts to the way Democrats play the race card and you fall for it."

Everybody on the blogosphere is on this story today, and have been since Drudge broke it mid-morning. Here's just one entry from MsUnderestimated's site:

Gaza Militants Claim Fox Kidnapping

Anita McNaught, wife of kidnapped journalist Olaf Wiig Freelance cameraman. Olaf Wiig was kidnapped last week A previously unknown militant group has said it kidnapped two journalists seized nine days ago in the Gaza Strip. A fax from the “Holy Jihad Brigades” to news agencies demanded the US release “Muslim prisoners” within 72 hours.

MsUnderestimated's site has lots of links to many other of the bloggers out there writing about this. AllahPundit at HotAir has the AP video, and Rusty Shackleford at MyPetJawa are posting up-to-the-minute updates.

Keith Olbermann, who did the Nazi salute with an O'Reilly mask covering his face, has responded to FOX News' Roger Ailes remark that the MSNBC host's action was over the line.

Unsurprisingly, Olbermann's response was made available to TVNewser:

"'Over the line?' Where was Roger when O'Reilly defended the Nazi SS stormtroopers from Malmedy in World War II? The SS shot 84 American POW's there in 1944, and three different times in the last year, Bill called has called those dead Americans war criminals.

That didn't take long! Just yesterday I suggested readers keep in mind the MSM's bashing of Pres. Bush on his birthday the next time a liberal accused conservatives of being 'mean-spirited.'  Groucho fans will know what I mean when I say: bring down the duck! On last evening's Journal Editorial Report , liberal newsie Marvin Kalb said the magic 'm-s' word in condemning the Wall Street Journal for its criticism of the New York Times.

The Journal had run an editorial, Fit and Unfit to Print  [subscription required] that both explained why it had run a story on the anti-terror financial tracking program, and criticized the New York Times for doing so.  For the record, the editorial explained that in contrast with the Times article, the Journal only published declassified information that had been provided them by the Treasury Department.

Do you support rigorous measures to strengthen border security and tighten immigration controls? If so, you're probably a 'nativist' - read racist - or a rube, or very possibly both.

Don't believe me? Just ask Neal Gabler. Here's what he had to say on this evening's Fox News Watch:

"The conservative nativists, and maybe that's a redundancy, thought they had a winner here. What a great issue they have," he said sarcastically. "You can beat up on aliens and get all of those white folks for the 2006 election."

Conservative columnist Jim Pinkerton weighed in with two points of note:

"Bloggers like Mickey Kaus and Michelle Malkin have made the point that the MSM, especially the LA Times, hid the most inflammatory element of those pictures from their readers and viewers by not showing the profusion of Mexican flags and highlighting the relatively few American flags."

As has been well-documented by Media Research Center [parent organization of NewsBusters], while MSMers are loath to label anyone or anything 'liberal,' they don't hesitate to brand various entities or individuals 'conservative' or 'right-wing.' Well, folks, I believe we have a new world record in the category.

On tonight's Fox News Watch, in the course of discussing the case of Colorado teacher Jay Bennish - who compared President Bush to Hitler - liberal [there, I said it] Neal Gabler managed to utter the term 'right-wing' four times . . . in 14 seconds. Yes, I checked it by my VCR timer.

And here we thought the MSM was biased against President Bush. Wrong! On this evening's Fox News Watch, reliable lefty Neal Gabler informed us that just the opposite is true. Turns out. . . the MSM has uncritically propagated an overly positive image of the president. Who knew?

Gabler's shocking revelation came in the course of a discussion of the recent Katrina revisionism. In particular, News Watch aired footage from